Terrible goat year

[houndlover]

In November I lost an older (11) goat with the first cold spell - she went down and appeared to die in her sleep, after I had started her on antibiotics (Nuflor) thinking it was pneumonia. She looked in good condition but had an elevated temp. In December and January 6 more goats showed no symptoms, but were found dead in the barn. Vet did a necropsy on two, found liver flukes. I have never had parasite problems, rotate, keep the barn clean, and use ivomec plus prior to breeding and when the does kid. Wormed all the goats, including the pregnant does, even though I might lose the kids. One doe aborted. 3 more died in January. Another necropsy. Huge worm loads, digestive too, no outward symptoms, gums and eyes look good, coats good, not skinny. On vet's advice had wormed with rotational wormers, ivomec, safeguard, cydectin, valbazen every 10 days for 2 months but goats still dying. Healthy one day, dead the next. Horrible fecals. The 5 survivors in the herd had clean fecals last week, and the two still pregnant (1 aborted, 1 had preemie twins that were about 2 weeks early, both were so small and weak, didn't last but an hour or so) both kidded yesterday with singles, a nice healthy buck kid and nice healthy doe kid. I have been watching this list and others to see if anyone had peculiar wormer resistant problems this year, and haven't seen any. My sheep are kept with the goats, but were separated just prior to lambing in January, they showed no problems. I'm at a loss. I have the survivors in a new barn, in a new pasture now. The only thing that is different is that last year we dug down below the regular surface of the barn, raised the barn, and put in a new foundation. Brought in dirt to backfill from another area on the farm. I am at a loss, losing 9 goats in 3 months, plus all the unborn kids. Lost my buck too. At this point I'm ready to give up goats. The vet sent one of the goats to the vet school in Corvallis but we haven't gotten word back. At this point I almost think they had some underlying virus that made them susceptible to parasites. Any clues?

[Alice In TX/MO]

I'm flabbergasted and horrified. You must be heartbroken.

All I can do is offer my condolences.

Please let us know what the vet school says.

[PricklyThistle]

I also lost a goat to liver flukes. I can't be sure, though, where the problem originated. I only had the buck 5 months. There are a lot of deer in this area and probably a lot of snails too. I also keep sheep with my goats (if that's possibly relevant). Could the dirt you brought have had deer feces and/or snails in it? As far as i know, the regular wormers do not kill liver flukes.

[Olivia67]

I am so sorry for your loss. You must be at the end of your rope at this point, I know how horrible I felt after losing 5 lambs two years ago to coccidia. I was just about ready to sell the farm and move back to the city. But I gave it some time and healed and began to learn some different methods, including changing to Baycox when I see the first signs of coccidia. Apparently, even though my vet is still in love with CoRid, I found out the hard way that it isn't working for us anymore.

I am also now experimenting with some of the ideas I have found in the book Natural Goat Care, I also have Natural Sheep Care too. The author is from Australia and so some things in there don't apply to us, we are in northern Illinois but she has a lot of good suggestions and the ones I have tried have worked for us. Like adding more carbs to our lactating does diets, we use oats, the author recommends barley but I don't know where I could get that. Now I am going to make the next step and try some other things so that I can get away from using commercial dewormers. This is very scary to me to try this but my animals not only survived the worst winter I hope to ever experience, but both my sheep and goats look terrific. Out of 18 live lambs, we lost only one, and a few of them were born when the temps were -25 to -10 below zero. Most were born when the temps were around 10 above and they all did pretty darn good. My goats look good too, and will start delivering their kids in about a month so I'll be able to tell from my kid crop how well they did but so far they look in good shape.

I personally think that my drastic losses with my lambs was a wake up call to make some drastic changes. Changes that I would not have considered unless I had to. For one thing, after calling the breeder of a ram that I had at the time, I found out that his line has little to no resistance to parasites. Big surprise that I lost all of his lambs right? I sold him as soon as I could and as far as I know, he is doing a great job at another farm, so obviously they know something I didn't and the breeder didn't either. I am no longer breeding that line and sticking to what works for me. So sometimes it's not you but some small defect that can cause something like this, or something that the "insiders" know that you don't. So if you don't get the answers that you need from the vets, then ask around about other factors, enviromental, genetic, problems in your feed (like mold), just don't give up. It sounds like you are a breeder who cares a lot about your animals and what you learn can help someone else out. Hang in there, it will get better, I promise! Hugs-

[dozedotz]

Oh, my goodness! What a horror for you! We think that we do everything, too...plus, we have very (understatement!) well drained land in dry, open woodland. We test twice a year every single goat (no combining) for worms and cocci and have not had to worm or treat any goat for 5 years. The tests cost us $160. each...I figure we save money by not having to buy the wormers and have always been proud that the goats do not have to have all the meds in their systems frequently...BUT this story is amazing! We cannot afford to be testing more than the twice a year that we already do! I always assumed we would have WARNING signs...but maybe not. This one is an eye opener...not sure what to do honestly! Sorry...so sorry...for all you have been through.

[punchiepal]

It is my understanding that Ivermec Plus is the only one that is effective against liver fluke.

http://www.dairygoatinfo.com/f28/wor...e-reith-16483/

[PricklyThistle]

My area is quite wet and I do think that choosing breeds and lines that are more resistant to parasites that thrive in moisture is more important than I considered when getting my goats. My Shetland sheep don't succumb to these issues because they're much more inclined toward a cool, moist environment but the dairy goats take some work to keep them healthy. Many of the goat breeds that are popularly raised for dairy come from warmer and/or more arid climates. This is an unnatural setting for them. I'm hoping that adding kikos into their line will increase their tolerance of the climate. It was discouraging just to lose one goat, I can't imagine how I'd feel after losing nine.

[houndlover]

The winter started out pretty dry, but then it got wet wet wet. We have black tail deer, and from what my vet said, the liver flukes are generally carried by white tail, which ARE present in small numbers but are pretty rare, we're kind of in a zone between habitats. Lots of snails, in fact, seems like more than average. I did use ivermec plus prior to breeding, it's all I've never used in the past. My guess is that it isn't working anymore. The 5 girls I have left seem pretty healthy, the two new mamas have lots of milk and their kids are nice and chubby, lots of curly hair. I just remembered one other change - I bought an auction boer goat in late July and brought him home to grass feed him for a few weeks prior to slaughter, to sort of clean out that awful ShowGoat feed from his system. His carcass was clean, and he came from a known herd that sure looks healthy, although they don't test for anything. He was kept separate from my goats, but shared a fence line. I've racked my brain from some disease that wouldn't affect my sheep too. The sheep were in the same pastures at the goats, and yet they came through the winter as usual, lambed on schedule with healthy lambs.

[PricklyThistle]

A lot of things seem to be increasingly resistant to chemical solutions. I'm planning on giving goldenseal regularly to help combat any possible future fluke issues. This remedy has shown to be helpful in human fluke infestation.

[Olivia67]

I don't know if this will help or not, but in the book Natural Goat Care, the author recommends 1 teaspoon a day of copper sulfate per head to prevent liver fluke infestations. She says it is a small conical snail that is the intermediate host and sometimes, if the infestation comes from a dam or very soggy pasture they can be seen on the edge of the water or on the ground.

When she had an infestation of liver fluke, she told her vet that she was going to give a teaspoon per head a day of copper sulphate and he was "quite horrified" and told her that it would damage the liver of the goats. She presumed that the flukes were doing a great job damaging the liver anyway so for 7 days she gave them each a teaspoon each of copper sulfate and her goats recovered better than ever. She also recommends spreading a little copper sulfate into the infected area if possible.

After a week, she says to a teaspoon of copper sulfate a week per head is enough to prevent reinfestation. Fleece and meat goats do not need as much per head, maybe 1/2 that amount. (Liver Flukes chapter on page 252 in Natural Goat Care)

She also says to check if your snails are the ones who carry the fluke, you check the way the spirals go. But then she says to trust your vet to know the difference and I can tell you that although I do really like my vet, I doubt that he would know the difference in snails by sight but maybe I'm underestimating him too. I'll have to ask him next time I see him.

In the beginning of the chapter of liver flukes she says that the flukes have a 6 week cycle so if you use drugs to counter act them, you need to do so on a 6 week interval.

Maybe you could discuss this with your vet? I did buy copper sulfate on ebay and it wasn't that expensive. Copper sulfate is also in my mineral mix that my goats get every day so if I used it, I would have to be very careful to pull my normal mineral so that I didn't overdose my goats. Just mentioning that in case you want to try it, be careful. Back when she wrote the book I don't think they had very good mineral mixes that were available.

Maybe someone else is familar with this method? The book is very popular and so I can only assume that others have used her methods besides myself. I haven't had liver flukes so I don't know if this would work or not on them.

[gunsmithgirl]

I thought Valbazen was supposed to kill liver flukes too. It says it does on the bottle, or is there resistance to Valbazen now in some areas?

[Backfourty,MI.]

I am so sorry for all your losses, it has got to be the worst kind of nightmare for you.
Please let us know what the school finds.

[harvestmoonfarm]

I'm so sorry for your losses. How incredibly heartbreaking and devastating! I do wonder, however, why your vet is having you use so many different dewormers. I've always read that you use one until it stops working, because switching can actually cause the parasites to "morph" and become immune to all of them. I sure hope you can figure it out soon. This winter has been horribly wet, which is going to cause a major parasite bloom this spring. I, for one, am actually dreading kids this year because of what I know is coming.

[houndlover]

On my vet's advice, I was worming on a 10 day cycle and he was doing fecals. Despite the worming, they were still showing very high loads, so we would try a different one. Surprisingly, the one that showed the best result was the mildest form, the Safeguard. The "survivors", 5 does, 3 bred (one aborted, two live births yesterday), one 9 yr old, and one yearling, are all showing much improvement. The kids were very healthy looking. I'm crossing my fingers that the worst is over. That barn is becoming tractor and equipment storage now. The 5 acres attached to it will lie fallow this year. The preliminary results from the vet school show liver flukes, liver and kidney damage, and barber pole damage to the stomach and intestines. It's not the first case of resistance they've seen but it's one of the worst. This doesn't bode well for goat producers in this area - we've had less resistance than many parts of the country, but with our low copper and selenium levels, it was bound to happen. I will have to be vigilant, and I'm worried about my sheep too.

[Frosted Mini's]

How awful, I'm so sorry!

This sounds rotten, but you may have inadvertently bred for more parasite resistant goats, if that is any kind of condolence to you.

[punchiepal]

I am so sorry for your losses.

I have been looking for a map I have saved to my hard drive today and can't find it. It says that Oregon is a "treatment" area. This is the closest I can find right now.
http://feedlotmagazine.com/archive/a...verflukes.html

[crazy4equines]

I am sorry for your loss.

[MDKatie]

I'm so sorry, that has got to be heartbreaking!

I got the advice from a big dairy goat breeder to deworm once a week for 3 weeks with Ivomec Plus, 1 cc/100 lbs, orally. She does it when the goats are dry, so she doesn't have to worry about withdrawal. She has had great success with it controlling liver flukes that way.

[houndlover]

I'm going back to ivomec plus. I just ordered a new bottle from Jeffers. I've been using it at the rate of 1cc/100 lbs, but I think I am going to do what a boer producer near me is using, 1cc/30 lbs. None of my girls is currently bred, and I lost my buck, so this will be a good time.